The car pulled into a detached garage. There must have been a dozen other cars parked inside, all covered up with canvas tarps. Sadie wondered how many people in Red Valley could even park one car in their garage, let alone a fleet.
The King’s Man led her out of the garage and up to the main house. As she got closer, she was surprised to see cracking paint and cobwebs marring the façade. The steps up to the porch sagged, the wood old and failing. One of the windows on the bottom floor was broken.
The front doors were unlocked; they walked inside. The floors were made of wood that groaned with every step. She immediately thought of the Gray House, but while its interior had felt cramped, this was massive. Dual staircases with ornate railings wound up on either side to a second story. A broad hallway between them disappeared into the depths of the house. Empty rooms waited on either side of the front doors. Every room Sadie could see, in fact, was empty. There were no rugs or furniture, no paintings or photos on the walls. She felt like her breaths were echoing back at her. There was nothing here, just a thin coating of dust everywhere except down the middle of the main walkway, where a myriad of feet had cleared a path.
The King’s Man matched those footprints without a word, and so Sadie followed. The emptiness of this house high on the hill pressed down on her as she went deeper. She saw rooms with closed doors and silently prayed they stayed closed. Discolored wallpaper hung peeling away from the wall. They passed a kitchen that looked as though no meals had ever been cooked there. The house—grand beyond anything in her experience—was a husk.
They stopped in front of a staircase leading down into what appeared to be a basement.
“The King doesn’t greet his guests upstairs?” she asked, wary of the dark stairs.
“The King waits below,” said the King’s Man.
“Is he trying to be creepy, or is that just a fun side-effect?” When she glanced up at the King’s Man’s blank expression, she quickly retracted the question. “Of course it’s creepy, sorry. That’s your thing. Lead the way.”
The basement too was empty, though the walls here were lined not with plaster and drywall, but stone. It was cooler underground and she was grateful. The basement seemed to span the entire house. At the darkest end, a wide doorway had been carved into the stones.
“Is that his throne room or whatever?” Sadie asked.
“The King waits below,” was the only reply.
Further in, she noticed a string of small alcoves set back into the wall at regular intervals. The first were empty, with no lights or decoration or any other discernable purpose.
“What are these—?” Her question was stolen away when she passed the next one. A man stood in the alcove, hands at his sides, mirrored eyes staring straight ahead. He was young, maybe twenty-five, with shoulder-length black hair and thick sideburns. She gave out a quick gasp when she saw him, but the man did not react. In fact, he didn’t even appear to be breathing.
Her guide did not wait for her. She moved away from the alcove and kept walking. The next was empty, but she recognized the man in the one after that: the King’s Man who met her at the hospital and had come with the shovel to her home. She carefully stepped closer to him and waved a hand in his face. Nothing.
“And here I was worried about the creepy staircase,” Sadie muttered.
There were more dormant King’s Men as she kept going: tall, short, young, old. Their clothing was a mix of styles and value, but nothing Sadie had ever seen someone else wear outside of old pictures. All had the same sunglasses and empty faces.
Her guide had stopped at the doorway. She caught up to him. The air pouring from the door wasn’t just cooler, it was frigid. She had a million questions, but guessed the King’s Man wouldn’t be offering any answers on this tour.
“The way below is long,” the King’s Man said. “Take care.”
He stepped through into the dark and she followed. A moment later she heard a click and soft white LED lights came on. This chamber was smaller and round. In the center of the floor was the start of another set of stairs, spiraling down into an abyss so deep and black that Sadie saw no bottom.
The King’s Man stood at the top of the stairs, waiting. It seemed that she was meant to go the rest of the way alone.
“The King waits below,” she said under her breath as she started down.
The stairs were made of stone, and were narrow and smooth. Every step she took felt like her foot could go flying out from under her. There was no railing, just the rock face on one side and the abyss on the other.
Just as the lights from the upper room were too far away to illuminate the path down, more LEDs began to glow, fixed into the rock. Sadie was momentarily grateful, before discarding that wholesale. If the King wanted to make it easy to get down to see him, he should have installed an elevator. But she doubted ease was anywhere on the King’s mind.
The next set of lights that came on as she passed were older: flickering yellow bulbs that cast a golden glow on the way below. Deeper in, more lights snapped to life. These appeared, impossibly, to be gaslamps. She could hear a soft hiss and the tick of heating glass as the flames danced. They threw jagged shadows out over the abyss that made Sadie want to hug the wall even closer.
Mary Bell had said that she’d been to see the King. Had she walked down these very steps? And what about Sadie’s mom? Had she been granted an audience like this?
When the gaslight faded, pitch torches roared to life, but even their red light showed no end to the winding stair. How long have I been descending? The hill leading up to the King’s house had been tall, but not this tall. How deep into the earth was she? She looked up and saw only darkness. It was only for a moment, but was dizzying; before she could catch herself, her foot slipped on the next step and she tumbled forward.
Her hands slapped the dark rock and found only pain, no purchase. She rolled, scrambling, slipping, and the abyss opened up in front of her, a hungry expanse of nothing. Her fingers dug into whatever she could find until she finally jerked to a halt.
Her body dangled over the edge, her feet kicking only shadows. The torches had gone out and she couldn’t tell which way was up, or even see what she was holding onto. She could taste blood in her mouth.
She exhaled a long-clenched breath. “It’s okay,” she said, panting into the black. “You just have to—”
Then her grip failed and she fell.
Chapter Fourteen
Sadie’s screams flew out into the darkness ahead of her, and she followed closely behind. Her arms and legs thrashed in the void, finding nothing. Terror clamped down hard on her heart and images of Mary Bell walking her lonely road flashed in her mind.
But then her fall inexplicably began to slow. Something held her up in the emptiness, and it set her down on her feet, at the bottom of the abyss at last.
I’m… not dead? Her breathing rasped in her ears. Holy shit.
For a moment, Sadie’s entire world was impenetrable darkness. Somewhere far off there was the drip, drip, drip of water. Then she saw a soft green glow ahead of her. The walls were far away now, opening up to a massive chamber that she could not see the end of. She moved toward the closest wall—careful on unsteady legs—and found the end of the winding stair, and the source of the light: the cavern rock was covered in a glowing green algae. She brushed it with her fingertips and they came away flecked with bioluminescent light.
“Few enter this place,” boomed a voice as loud as thunder. Sadie had to clamp her hands over her ears to fend off the sudden, shattering noise. “And even fewer enter in such dramatic fashion.”
She turned away from the glowing walls, toward the vast dark that filled the cavern. There was something familiar about this; she could feel it in her bones. Yes—in her vision, after signing her ledger. And in her nightmares last night.
But she’d asked for this. Her great-great-great-grandmother had stood here, and so could she. “You’re the King of Red Valley,” she called out into t
he dark.
A deep rumble spread throughout the chamber like an earthquake. A laugh, perhaps. “I am King of many things,” the thunderous voice replied. “I am King of the air and sky, of the rock and stone. I am King of ages that have been forgotten and those that will never be seen. I am King of fire and shadow.” Two great red eyes opened above her. The eyes were as tall as she was, and contained endless depths of power, malice, and flame. “And yes, little Liar, I am King of Red Valley.”
Something moved in the dark. What she thought had been the far wall of the cavern shifted just enough to tell her she’d been wrong. That it was alive. There was no discernable shape, no limb or face. Only the eyes. And the darkness.
“Do I frighten you, little Liar?”
Such a stupid question. Sadie had never been more terrified in all her life. Her imagination was fevered with thoughts of claws or fangs or even tentacles, but those would be preferable to the unknowable shadows that filled this deep well. But what really made her want to scream was his sheer impossible size. Whatever he was, whatever true horror was hidden just beyond the reach of her eyes, it was on a scale that made her feel—not like a child, but like a raindrop falling into the ocean.
With something as massive as the King, it seemed less a matter of if he could kill you, than if he’d even notice he’d done it.
But she wasn’t going to tell him that.
“Yes, I am afraid,” Sadie said, twisting a finger in her ear. “Afraid that I’m going to be deaf before this conversation is half over.”
The cavern trembled with the King’s laughter. Somewhere out of sight, rocks probably bigger than her fell and shattered on the stone.
“Is this preferable?” the King asked in a new voice, something more human.
“Yes, thank you,” Sadie said. “And thanks for catching me when I… fell.”
“Of course,” said the King. “I did warn you to take care before you started down.”
Sadie’s brow crinkled. “That was you? You speak through the King’s Men?”
“They are my eyes, ears, and voice. They go where I cannot.”
“What are they, exactly?”
“What do they look like?”
“They look human,” Sadie said.
“And so they are,” the King said. “Or nearly so. They served me in their lives, and they serve me still. My blood runs in their veins.”
Sadie wondered if the King believed such a transformation to be a punishment or a reward. The distinction probably did not matter, nor the victim’s willingness. “You know the people in town hate the King’s Men. Everybody’s afraid of them.”
“As they should be,” said the King. “I protect my subjects. I honor them with my forbearance and mercy and demand little in return. But one thing I do require is fear. It is instructive. It is… a reminder. Man is always seeking to control his world. Without proper fear, he forgets his proper place in the true order.”
Like Undersheriff Hassler, Sadie thought. He had a very different idea about the true order.
“I mourn the loss of your mother,” said the King. “She was a bright star in a dim night. This world was better for her presence.”
“Thank you.”
“But the world turns,” said the King. “Old fades, replaced by new. I sense the power in you. Raw, untamed, new, but there. You will take up your family’s heritage? You will safekeep the secrets of Red Valley, little Liar?”
Sadie swallowed. “Actually,” she said, “that’s why I asked to see you. I… failed.”
The fiery red eyes regarded her without blinking. “Yes,” said the King. “I know.”
“You… you do?”
The darkness moved again, grinding like an avalanche. Heat radiated all around her, making Sadie’s skin sweat. Whatever the King was, it felt like he had come closer.
“The ambitions of foolish men in Red Valley are not unknown to me.”
“So you know that the undersheriff thinks he can stop you?”
The King snorted. “Greater beings than he have tried and failed. He is of no consequence. Or he was, at least, until he forced my long-kept secret to be revealed.”
“So it’s true,” Sadie said. “That you’re dying?”
“Let me tell you a story, little Liar,” said the King. “In a time before the reach of mankind’s memory, I walked this world like a god. The sun burned far hotter then, and the nights were bitter cold. Such a world was hardly fit for life. So I told the sun to calm its fires and demanded that the night draw back its cold. They resisted my command at first, as many have. But they relented, in the end, as all things do.
“But I was not alone in the world. There were not many, but there were others, and they did not want the world to be full of life. They wanted it for themselves. They thought I was a fool, and they thought me weak. They were wrong, and I showed them that. Our battles broke the world, shattered continents, created seas, ripped canyons and toppled mountains. But I showed them their folly and the world was better off without them.”
Pride had crept into the King’s booming voice. Sadie wondered how much of his story was true, but she did not doubt he had defeated many of his enemies. The thought of other creatures like him in the world was hard to hold onto. She’d always known about the strange things who lingered on the far side of the River, but they were nothing like this.
“There was one,” said the King, “who proved a challenge to me. I will not speak its name. It ought never be spoken by gods or men. Its power is in annihilation and the void. Life is abhorrent to it, and withers at its touch. And so we fought. For an age, we fought. Until at last I struck the final blow.
“But,” said the King, “I did not escape this battle unscathed. Before its defeat, my unspeakable enemy delivered to me a great wound. The pain of it was like the sundering of the world. Though I was victorious, I was weakened by the ordeal. I required rest. Therefore I searched the world over, and at last came to this place. Beneath the earth, I slumbered long to recover my strength. In time, humans settled the land above me.
“I came to love this place and its people. They became my people. I lent them my strength and my protection. I gave them power.”
Like the Liar’s gift. Like Beto’s brujo magic.
“But your wound hasn’t healed?” Sadie asked.
The King sighed; the sound was like a hurricane. “No. No matter how long I slumbered, the wound does not heal. I no longer believe it can. But I still have enemies in this world, some small and some great. If they knew I was still so weak, they would strike—not just at me, but also my people. If they came to Red Valley, the town would not survive.”
Sadie considered this. “So is that why you created the Liar? To hide away your wound?”
“You are clever, little Liar,” said the King. “I have great power. I can shape and I can mold. And I can destroy. But I cannot change. I am as I have always been. But humans, you are forever changing, forever evolving. Over the ages, I learned that my power could be used to guide that evolution. So I found a suitable servant and gave her the power I needed to protect us all.”
“Mary Bell.”
“Yes,” said the King with a shuddering laugh. “Whom you recently met, if I am not mistaken.”
“What do you know of the road Mary walks now?”
“Nothing,” said the King. “The dark roads are closed to me, their purpose and path unknowable. If I could have saved her from death, I would have, but I have no dominion over life and death. I cannot grant immortality. And perhaps this is for the best. It is exactly that frailty that allows you humans to change, to grow.”
Sadie was not interested in hearing from an immortal being about the usefulness of human mortality, not when she’d watched her mother die a few days before. But she did not challenge him; something like him would never understand such a loss.
“So Mary’s Lie kept your enemies from learning that you are still wounded,” Sadie said. “So they stay away, because they are still afra
id of you.”
“Precisely,” said the King.
Now it was Sadie’s turn to sigh. “But then I spoke your secret.”
“Yes,” said the King. The great red eyes turned, looking off at something Sadie couldn’t see. “And now they are coming. I can feel it. Old, terrible things. The hunter in the darkness. Those who wait behind the flames. And my greatest foe, the unspeakable one.”
“I thought you defeated it.”
“Defeated, yes,” said the King. “Destroyed, no. Some evils cannot be destroyed.”
Sadie dropped her eyes. She’d been the Liar for less than a day but had already revealed a nearly two hundred-year-old secret and brought certain destruction to her home town. But should she have just let Beto be beaten and thrown back into prison? That couldn’t be the right answer either. There had to be another way.
“But can’t you fight them?” Sadie asked. “I know you’re hurt, but it’s your fault they’re coming here at all.”
“My fault? This is how you speak to your King?”
Sadie hadn’t meant to offend, but bristled at his tone. “We didn’t invite a bunch of monsters to our town. They’re coming for you.”
The King growled and Sadie felt it in her gut. “You forget your place.”
“My place?” Sadie’s jaw tightened. “My place is trying to figure out how to live with a worthless job in a dead-end town. My place is realizing I’ll be living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of my life. My place is figuring out how to pay for burial expenses for my mom, who didn’t even tell me she was dying.”
The towering black bulk of the King shifted closer, close enough that the air around her stirred with his warm breath. It smelled of wet soil and of iron. Of blood. “You know nothing of the horrors I have spared you and your people.”
“Well I don’t feel particularly spared right now, your majesty,” Sadie snapped. Part of her brain knew how stupid it was to pick a fight with a being who could crush her without breaking a sweat. But most of her brain was just sick of his shit. “You didn’t save my mom from cancer. I went outside the King’s Peace for five minutes and weird things with fake faces threaten me because they can smell you on me. And the undersheriff—”
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